Succession

So, possibly for the second time (the other being Maker Gear Rising), I'm reviewing somebody's Encounters of the Boss Kind entry that they submitted as their RM Venture entry. The game was decent as a one boss-battle game, but the fact that it was used for both contests makes it hard to compare to the other RMV entries I've played.

STORY:
Noah of default RTP fame has been tasked with choosing the King's heir, and is struggling to figure out the wisest way to do so. Each has some flaw that makes it difficult for him. This being a game, he decides that it would be best to observe the three candidates' skills and behavior in battle before announcing his decision. There are some brief choices you can make throughout that affect the ending, which is kinda nice and adds a little bit of replay value to the otherwise short game. All in all the story is mediocre. It's easy to understand and does make you stop and think for a second about your choices, but it's nothing new and and grammar/spelling errors creep up in several places. Again, the branching endings were a nice touch - they give the story a bit of depth.

GAMEPLAY:
One boss fight. Subject to a set of restrictions I knew well, as I participated in making a game under them. I thought I was done with those... The party members had a wide variety of skills, and it was a pretty typical balanced party. Noah the mage, Eric the balanced swordsman, Terence the healer/buffer, and Brenda the hunter. Brenda was a nice touch; her ailment-focused skills were somewhat unique and added a fresh element to the fight. The fight wasn't too difficult, but not too easy either, about average in terms of difficulty and creativity. Very minimalist thanks to the contest restrictions, but I still felt that I had a good range of strategy options to chose from at least.

Again, the entire game was just a few choices and a boss fight. I wish the developer had at least included a playable epilogue section for the RMV version.

GRAPHICS/SOUND/ATMOSPHERE:
A few tiny little rooms made with default resources. Pretty well-crafted actually considering they serve no purpose other than dialogue settings. It's difficult to establish atmosphere with such a brief intro/outro. Sound was default RTP, as required by the other contest rules. All in all... meh. I can't really judge the mapping, or variety, or art style, or creative utilization of default resources, or any of that, because there just wasn't much there to be judged.

FINAL VERDICT:
Not a bad boss fight, not a bad short story, but in my opinion, both fall just a bit short of being worth submitting for the less-restrictive RMV ruleset. Because the other games all offered more quantity-wise in terms of story and gameplay, it was hard to compare this entry to them using the same criteria.